Willem Dafoe Joins The Cast Of The Fault In Our Stars

The adaptation of John Green’s bestselling novel The Fault In Our Stars already has an impressive cast of young actors and veterans, with Shailene Woodley, Laura Dern, Nat Wolff and Mike Birbiglia all already attached, but today the film has added another great name to its ranks: Willem Dafoe. The director of the movie, Josh Boone, took to his own personal Twitter account with the news, clearly excited to get such a great actor involved with his project.

One of my favorite actors, Willem Dafoe, will play Peter Van Houten in #tfiosmovie!

The Fault in Our Stars tells the story of a young woman named Hazel (Woodley), who has long been dealing with cancer but refuses to let herself be defined by it. While attending a teen cancer support group she meets a fellow patient named Augustus (Ansel Elgort) who starts to change her perspective. Dafoe's character, Peter Van Houten, is an alcoholic author who wrote Hazel's book, 'An Imperial Affliction.' The book was first published in January 2012 and the adaptation is being scripted by Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter, best known as the screenwriters behind (500) Days of Summer and The Spectacular Now (which also starred Woodley). Production has already begun in Pittsburgh, and while there's no official release date yet the film is expected to be released some time in 2014.

Defoe has been keeping very busy of late and has a solid slate of projects coming up. Later this year we'll see him in Anton Corbijn's John le Carré daptation A Most Wanted Man, Lars von Trier's Nymphomaniac, and Scott Cooper's thriller Out Of The Furnace. The last entry on the list recently released its first trailer which you can watch below.:

Next year we'll get to see the result of the actor's reunion with The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou director Wes Anderson when The Grand Budapest Hotel is released. Fox Searchlight is already set to distribute the film, which co-stars Edward Norton, Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Jeff Goldblum, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman, and many, many more, but the studio has not yet announced a release date.